my favourite old master painter has always been Caravaggio. I think grounding the religious and mythic characters into something gritty and dark using the chiaroscuro method is something I’d really like to achieve someday… Maybe not his personal subject matter, but his mood, texture and lighting in particular. His people feel so real and grounded. I read he used beggars, prostitutes and peasants as reference to represent the characters which is really cool.

He lived a pretty wild and violent life and died early from disease, but it’s cool to see him living on in pop culture where creatives are using his methods and tones. Off the top of my head dark souls is an obvious one, but his influence is still everywhere honestly.

These days I always appreciate the dark, violent, somber and gothic aesthetics of European Christianity because of artists like him. It’s in a lot of really great heavy metal music too.